Presentation Transcript

1. High-Speed Document Image Scanning System: The Solution to Outpatient Prescription Workflow in a CHAMPVA Pharmacy Servicing Center Civilian Health Administration and Medical Program of the Department of Veteran Affairs Meds by Mail Pharmacy Program Conn Lewis, PharmD and Co Lai, PharmD Introduction Mail-order pharmacy service provided by the Civilian Health Administration and Medical Program of the Department of Veteran Affairs (CHAMPVA) to members of deceased veterans and those with service-connected disabilities Two servicing centers Cheyenne, Wyoming - West Coast Dublin, Georgia – East Coast Processes in excess of two million outpatient prescriptions (and other associated paper documents) annually. Prescriptions, once entered, are dispensed by the Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy (CMOP) center in Leavenworth, Kansas Affiliated to VA Health Administration Center Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy National Office Results/Conclusions Challenges Operational Heavy workload : High resolution images & encrypted metadata for Ten million old documents Three million new documents per year Geographical disadvantages: Long distance between centers Inclement weather disrupts operation Technical Process documents of various sizes, shapes, and thicknesses at high speed No adequate storage capacity is currently available f for a large amount of digital images and metadata Bandwidth deficiency as data is transferred across the busy Veteran Affairs national network over the long distance between the two centers Pending procurement and implementation of the new system The new workflow will provide us with reliable electronic verification capability, audit trail of prescriptions, and automated form processing. Potential improvement opportunity in the possible standardization of our care provider order forms for optical character recognition scanning. High-speed digitization of prescription images will be the critical stepping stone to the inevitable arrival of a full-fledged electronic prescribing future. Figure 3. Initial overview of Meds-by-Mail system configuration (Courtesy of HAC OI&T) Literature cited Pollack, Ted J. 2008 Testing and Training – Phase 1 EEC Dynamic. Dept. of Veteran Affairs Health Administration Center. Version 1.0: pp2-34 Kopp, Peter and Pollack, Ted J. 2010 Initial MbM System configuration and processing overview. Nosek, Ron. Feb 2009. Pharmacy Prescription Imaging System Functional Requirements – CHAMPVA Med by Mail Program. Version 1: pp 4-7 Imaging Business Machines, LLC. (IBML) . ImageTrac® Implementation Overview for IT Professionals. 2009: pp 2-18 Solutions Cache Ensemble Workflow Engine application developed by HAC OI&T for flexible distribution of the order entry workload between the two pharmacy sites The industrial-graded high-speed image scanner of interest is capable of - Converting paper documents from business card to legal sizes with diverse thicknesses to high resolution images - Providing bar-coding and mechanical batch separating technologies for meta-data generation HAC OI&T provides a dedicated network segment for improved data transfer bandwidth. Figure 1. Meds by Mail (MbM) pharmacy staff at Dublin facility Figure 4. Screenshot of the in-house developed Cache Ensemble Workflow Engine prototype (Courtesy of HAC OI&T) Acknowledgments We would like to extend our thanks to Ron Nosek, our boss, who has encouraged and facilitated our involvement with this presentation, We would like to thank Tim Stroud of National CMOP for morale support. We are grateful for the generous help of Ted Pollack and Peter Kopp of HAC OI&T in explaining technical information, lending us materials for the presentation, and reviewing our poster. Special thanks should be directed to Wendy & Richards Desjarlais and Carol Ludwig of Meds by Mail for spending their precious time proof-reading our materials. We are also grateful for the generous help of Debby Kristofco of ibmlfor permitting our usage of the company’s product technical information. The presenters of this poster have no financial ties to any vendors and receive no funding from non-VA sources . Objectives Creates a virtual environment for document management to Increase operational efficiency Faster document handling and retrieval process More dynamic workload distribution between servicing center. Improve beneficiary safety. Better order entry accuracy More accurate verification For further information Please contact Conn.Lewis@va.govor Co.Lai@va.gov. For more information on this project. . Figure 2. An industrial-graded high-speed document scanning system of interest by Meds-by-Mail (Courtesy of IBML) Figure 5. Screenshot of the bookmark functionality in the Cache Ensemble Workflow Engine prototype (Courtesy of HAC OI&T)